Part 9 (1/2)
”That was a strange dream, my Chonita,” said Prudencia, threading her needle. ”Thou must have eaten too many dulces for supper: didst thou?”
”No,” said Chonita, shortly, ”I did not.”
She continued her aimless walk, wondering at her depression of spirits. All her life she had felt a certain mental loneliness, but a healthy body rarely harbors an invalid soul, and she had only to spring on a horse and gallop over the hills to feel as happy as a young animal. Moreover, the world--all the world she knew--was at her feet; nor had she ever known the novelty of an ungratified wish. Once in a while her father arose in an obdurate mood, but she had only to coax, or threaten tears,--never had she been seen to shed one,--or stamp her foot, to bring that doting parent to terms. It is true that she had had her morbid moments, an abrupt impatient desire for something that was not all light and pleasure and gold and adulation; but, being a girl of will and sense, she had turned resolutely from the troublous demands of her deeper soul, regarding them as coals fallen from a mind that burned too hotly at times.
This morning, however, she let the blue waters rise, not so much because they were stronger than her will, as because she wished to understand what was the matter with her. She was filled with a dull dislike of every one she had ever known, of every condition which had surrounded her from birth. She felt a deep disgust of placid contentment, of the mere enjoyment of suns.h.i.+ne and air. She recalled drearily the clock-like revolutions of the year which brought bull-fights, races, rodeos, church celebrations; her mother's anecdotes of the Indians; her father's manifold interests, ever the theme of his tongue; Reinaldo's grandiloquent accounts of his exploits and intentions; Prudencia's infinite nothings. She hated the b.a.l.l.s of which she was La Favorita, the everlasting serenades, the whole life of pleasure which made that period of California the most perfected Arcadia the modern world has known. Some time during the past few weeks the girl had crossed her hands over her breast and lain down in her eternal tomb. The woman had arisen and come forth, blinded as yet by the light, her hands thrust out gropingly.
”It is that man,” she told herself, with angry frankness. ”I had not talked with him ten minutes before I felt as I do when the scene changes suddenly in one of Shakespeare's plays,--as if I had been flung like a meteor into a new world. I felt the necessity for mental alertness for the first time in my life; always, before, I had striven to conceal what I knew. The natural consequences, of course, were first the desire to feel that stimulation again and again, then to realize the littleness of everything but mental companions.h.i.+p. I have read that people who begin with hate sometimes end with love; and if I were a book woman I suppose I should in time love this man whom I now so hate, even while I admire. But I am no lump of wax in the hands of a writer of dreams. I am Chonita Iturbi y Moncada, and he is Diego Estenega. I could no more love him than could the equator kiss the poles. Only, much as I hate him, I wish I could see him again. He knows so much more than any one else. I should like to talk to him, to ask him many things. He has sworn to marry me.” Her lip curled scornfully, but a sudden glow rushed over her. ”Had he not been an Estenega,--yes, I could have loved him,--that calm, clear-sighted love that is born of regard; not a whirlwind and a collapse, like most love. I should like to sit with my hands in my lap and hear him talk forever. And we cannot even be friends. It is a pity.”
The girl's mind was like a splendid castle only one wing of which had ever been illuminated. By the light of the books she had read, and of acute observation in a little sphere, she strove to penetrate the thick walls and carry the torch into broader halls and lofty towers.
But superst.i.tion, prejudice, bitter pride, inexperience of life, conjoined their shoulders and barred the way. As Diego Estenega had discerned, under the thick Old-World sh.e.l.l of inherited impressions was a plastic being of all womanly possibilities. But so little did she know of herself, so futile was her struggle in the dark with only sudden flashes to blind her and distort all she saw, that with nothing to shape that moulding kernel it would shrink and wither, and in a few years she would be but a polished sh.e.l.l, perfect of proportion, hollow at the core.
But if strong intellectual juices sank into that sweet, pliant kernel, developing it into the perfected form of woman, establis.h.i.+ng the current between the brain and the pa.s.sions, finis.h.i.+ng the work, or leaving it half completed, as Circ.u.mstance vouchsafed?--what then?
”Ay, Senor!” exclaimed Prudencia, as two people, mounted on horses glistening with silver, galloped into the court-yard. ”Valencia and Adan!”
I came out of the sala at that moment and watched them alight: Adan, that faithful, dog-like adorer, of whose kind every beautiful woman has a half-dozen or more, Valencia the bitter-hearted rival of Chonita. She was a tall, dazzling creature, with flaming black eyes large and heavily lashed, and a figure so lithe that she seemed to sweep downward from her horse rather than spring to the ground. She had the dark rich skin of Mexico--another source of envy and hatred, for the Iturbi y Moncadas, like most of the aristocracy of the country, were of pure Castilian blood and as white as porcelain in consequence--and a red full mouth.
”Welcome, my Chonita!” she cried. ”_Valgame Dios!_ but I am glad to see thee back!” She kissed Chonita effusively. ”Ay, my poor brother!”
she whispered, hurriedly. ”Tell him that thou art glad to see him.”
And then she welcomed me with words that fell as softly as rose-leaves in a zephyr, and patted Prudencia's head.
Chonita, with a faint flush on her cheek, gave Adan her hand to kiss.
She had given this faithful suitor little encouragement, but his unswerving and honest devotion had wrung from her a sort of careless affection; and she told me that first night in Monterey that if she ever made up her mind to marry she thought she would select Adan: he was more tolerable than any one she knew. It is doubtful if he had crossed her mind since; and now, with all a woman's unreason, she conceived a sudden and violent dislike for him because she had treated him too kindly in her thoughts. I liked Adan Menendez; there was something manly and sure about him,--the latter a restful if not a fascinating quality. And I liked his appearance. His clear brown eyes had a kind direct regard. His chin was round, and his profile a little thick; but the gray hair brushed up and away from his low forehead gave dignity to his face. His figure was pervaded with the indolence of the Californian.
”At your feet, senorita mia,” he murmured, his voice trembling.
”It gives me pleasure to see thee again, Adan. Hast thou been well and happy since I left?”
It was a careless question, and he looked at her reproachfully.
”I have been well, Chonita,” he said.
At this moment our attention was startled by a sharp exclamation from Valencia. Prudencia had announced her engagement. Valencia had refused many suitors, but she had intended to marry Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada.
Not that she loved him: he was the most brilliant match in three hundred leagues. Within the last year he had bent the knee to the famous coquette; but she had lost her temper one day,--or, rather, it had found her,--and after a violent quarrel he had galloped away, and gone almost immediately to Los Angeles, there to remain until Don Juan went after him with a bushel of gold. She controlled herself in a moment, and swayed her graceful body over Prudencia, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
”Thou baby, to marry!” she said, softly. ”Thou didst take away my breath. Thou dost look no more than fourteen years. I had forgotten the grand merienda of thy eighteenth birthday.”
Prudencia's little bosom swelled with pride at the discomfiture of the haughty beauty who had rarely remembered to notice her. Prudencia was not poor; she owned a goodly rancho; but it was an hacienda to the state of a Menendez.
”Thou wilt be one of my bridesmaids, no, Dona Valencia?” she asked.
”That will be the proud day of my life,” said Valencia, graciously.
”We have a ball to-night,” said Chonita.